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The Asia Pacific Screen Awards today announced that the Winner of the annual APSA NETPAC Development Prize is Filipino filmmaker Sheron R. Dayoc for his film Halaw (Ways of the Sea).

Designed to nurture outstanding talent in the region, a prize of US$5,000 is offered by APSA in collaboration with the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC). All films in competition for APSA are eligible.

Dhaka: The film activists in Bangladesh are mourning the death of Bangladesh’s leading filmmaker Tareque Masud and his friend—cinematorgrapher Mishuk Munier. They died in a road accident at around 12.30 pm on Saturday 13 August 2011. Tareque and seven others were scouting for locations for his new film Kagojer Phool (The Paper flower), presumably a 'prequel' to his famous film Matir Moina (The Clay Bird, 2002) in Manikganj on 13 August morning. When returning to Dhaka their microbus was hit by a coach and five of them died on the spot.

Mani Kaul, renowned Indian filmmaker who, together with Kumar Shahani, was the architect of the New Wave in Indian cinema in the early 70s, passed away in New Delhi on 6 July 2011. His death has been mourned by the entire film fraternity.

Nugroho’s cinema features a lot of ladies in sensual and suffering scenes. So it makes symbolic sense that his career summary is dedicated to his mother. “My late mother once told me, “Nugroho recalls, “that before she turned 17, as a member of the Red Cross, she stood among hundreds of dead bodies on Braga Street, Bandung. Bodies of the victims of the massacre by the Dutch. She also witnessed the hundreds of deaths in 1965 (the bloody takeover by Suharto), and the chaos of violence in 1998 (the bloody resignation of Suharto)…

NETPAC and AsiaPacificFilms.com(APF) launched a website this month with a selection of culturally importantIranian films complete, including introductions by Persian film experts andeducational resources. This is a unique opportunity for the public to watch 24narrative feature films, documentaries and short Iranian films. Also streaming is an hour-long symposium on the theme of “Understanding Persian Culture through Film”. Interviews, essays, and a bibliography is offered as educational resources. There is an on-line forum so viewers can add their ideas and questions about the films after viewing them.

It was a time for celebration and renewal for NETPAC which completed 20 years in 2010. The Network was born in August 1990, at an international seminar on “Promoting Asian Cinema” organized by Cinemaya The Asian Film Quarterly in New Delhi. For all these twenty years, NETPAC has been a staunch standard-bearer for the cinemas of Asia, doggedly supporting them, publishing books, holding conferences, programming Asian films for various film festivals, founding a NETPAC festival in Jogjakarta and instituting the NETPAC award for the Best Asian Film, now given away at about thirty festivals worldwide. The year’s flagship event was undoubtedly Imaging Asia the

NETPAC is outraged by the Iranian Court's sentence of Jafar Panahi and Muhammad Rasoulof to 6 years of jail and 20 years of not being allowed to make a film, travel outside Iran or to speak to the media. As long as these two great filmmakers are censored in this intolerable manner, then all of us who value film must fight for their right to create art that reflects the truth.

When the Board decided that NETPAC would commemorate 20 years of its existence - we began with the idea of a conference. Just a conference…But then, one thing led to another.Back then, that was the extent we believed we could stretch ourselves till one thought led to another and those thoughts led us to partners, collaborators, associates who then pitched in with venues and funds. So, before we knew it the idea took on a life of its own and, Imaging

The Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. For Asian cinema, which has grown exponentially and won more awards than ever before, this period is marked by a sense of achievement and pride.